


Kernel of Hope

by windandthestars



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her work, with James' help and patience has flourished, yet her mind still anguished in the still hours before dawn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kernel of Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I Know Everybody Lets You Down](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/12755) by cakeandbluejello. 



> Past Helen/John (lots of John related feels), present Helen/James

There's a complicated mess of emotions that comes with sharing a house with James. He's very proper about it for propriety's sake and most of the time when she's not working she hardly notices he's there, but there are nights when she's haunted and all she hears is the quiet whisperings of his footsteps across the floor in their great hall or the crackling of the fire in the library and the quiet puff of his lips against his pipe.

She has tried to forget, over the years that have past, what it had felt like to have her heart swell with giddy foolishness. She has tried to forget the stirring in her soul and the fire on her skin, but in this alone she had failed.

Her work, with James' help and patience has flourished, yet her mind still anguished in the still hours before dawn. From time to time she would confide in him, worn down and no longer cautious, but she kept the worst of it to herself, burying it beneath their work and her iron will. James besides had other woman and had no need to make a play for her heart. He was her friend, more steadfast than any, she knew this too be true, and yet she never once let herself consider anything more.

Their meals were formal affairs at his insistence. There would be no nibbling at plates of bread and cheese left out in the open air for hours. Their physical bodies were objects of pride he would insist if she objected to leaving her work. He wasn't wrong, she never argued with him on this, but she found it less relevant now that her days numbered seemingly into the hundreds. Even so she sat with him for each meal, making polite conversation and commenting occasionally on the politics of the greater London area.

In the beginning, these meals had been a stage for Helen, a carefully constructed illusion that allowed her to relish in the small pleasures of life, ones she had overlooked, or those that were otherwise accompanied by sharp pangs of grief. Love could not be forgotten, but here she could pretend it still lived, light shining from the ashes of her soul.

James passed her jam and sections of the newspaper at equal intervals. Once he teased her cautiously over her hair, no longer impeccably blonde, the roots were hazy and straw colored. He would have to give up his lemon tarts for her he had quipped, and the preposterous nature of the thought had made her laugh, for James loved his lemon tarts second to none.

He had given them up though, and instead of the newspaper to divide them there was only the table and her downcast eyes. She still relished in a warm stew on a rainy day, but she felt as if the warmth had begun to come from some place else. Their home, so large in its scale, no longer felt so cold, so dreadfully drafty. James, she figured, had something to do with this although she never asked.

He was reliable in his own quiet way, making sure there was soup on blustery winter days and warm bread and fried tomatoes or mushrooms with thick salty bacon the morning after a particularly late night. A task that when left to Helen meant, more often than not, porridge for breakfast and cold sandwiches for lunch. The chef James had hired was wonderful, but he only cooked what was requested. Helen unimaginative and uncomfortable in the kitchen was thankful for James’ help in this. The dining room felt more alive because of it, the space between them smaller when she wondered wide eyed at such simple marvels.

"Such a young thing," James would smile in reference to her. At first she had scoffed at the idea, but as time went on she found herself beginning to smile, almost agreeing. There was a resilience in youth, a tiny untarnished kernel of hope and maybe, perhaps, she had found that again.


End file.
